Boardwalk Empire - Recap

The show opens up with a liquor drop off. The show is based in Atlantic City in 1920. They take the goods and are driving to New Jersey. That is when they see a dead body in the middle of a dirt road with a car that is turned over. When they go to get the body off the road and they turn a car over, they get bombarded by other people and it turns out to be a set up.

This was days before prohibition begins. The city's treasurer goes up to speak in front of a group of older women. His name is Enoch "Nucky" Thompson. He gives an endearing speech about all of the hard times he has gone through while they all watch attentively. There is one particular woman who seems to be incredibly moved by his speech. She looked like she was seconds away from crying the whole time.

The next character we are introduced to is the World War 1 veteran who has a small family and was clearly traumatized at war. He tries to act as if he was more like desensitized, but you can tell that it does bother him a little what happened over there. He seems to be working for Nucky with his under handed dealings. He even shows up to a very important dinner. He is rough around the edges and has little to no manners.

Nucky is walking up the boardwalk and he stops to look in one of the store front windows. This is where there are babies. These babies are sick and shown off in the window. The one shown looked as if it had been born two months too early. He seemed to be moved by this. Not necessarily in a positive way, either.

There is a meeting of minds, so to speak, as all of the area's gangsters meet up to discuss what is going on. This is where we learn that Al Capone is hanging around at that time, we even meet him. He is very young at this time. After they have their meeting, Nucky sleeps with a woman who says things he doesn't like during sex. Jimmy (Pitt) goes to see midgets box it out in the ring and runs into Al Capone. They bond over this and become somewhat friends.

The woman that was in the audience of Nucky's speech is Margaret Schroeder. She runs to speak to him after she had clearly been beaten by someone. They have a compelling conversation in which Nucky ends up handing her enough cash to get her through the next few months. When she goes home and her husband finds out about the cash he loses his mind and beats her a great deal. He is beating her while all the while their younger children are watching AND she is pregnant with their third child.

There are two gangsters that are definitely about to get into some trouble. There is Rothstein and Luciano. They are gambling at Nucky's and he eventually needs to talk them down. That is when Mr. Schroeder shows up wasted. He is mad and decides to make a big scene about the money his wife had acquired. Nucky had to get physical and he knocked the man out within two hits.

We also meet a man named Mickey Doyle. He is what seems like a morgue worker. He has sick ideas and fantasies. He seems to like corpses and puts aside the prettier ones so that he can use them up. He ends up getting arrested by the feds and Mr. Schroeder ends up being killed.

The circle seems complete itself when Jimmy, Al Capone, and a couple other men decide that they are going to rob Rothstein's crew. They kill all of the guys and run off with the alcohol. Jimmy talks to Nucky about it and it seems like Nucky didn't really want anyone to die. Nucky tells him that being in the war had turned him into nothing but a murderer and that's why he behaves the way that he has been behaving.

Nucky goes on a little visit to see the Commodore. There is a pamphlet that is called The International Jew. Nucky looks over it and then seems to lose interest. While he is dealing with that, that is when Nucky's cops on pay roll have taken Mr. Schroeder and thrown him into the ocean. They use this as a set up also, blaming him for murdering the men that they did.

After that, Nucky goes to the hospital to see Mrs. Schroeder. He brings her flowers and checks in to see if she is doing alright.